Question

Table salt is a refined salt containing about 97 to 99% sodium Chloride iodized salt containing potassium iodide is widely available.

Explain why the formula for table salt is NaCI and not NaCI²

Answer 1

Explanation given below

Step-by-step explanation:

Sodium chloride, also known as NaCl, would have a stoichiometric ratio of one sodium cation to one chloride anion. The reason for sodium chloride to have this composition is based on the law of definite proportions.

Sodium belongs to group 1A in the periodic table and, therefore, has one valence electron. It loses its electron when it becomes a cation of charge +1.

Chlorine belongs to group 7A in the periodic table having a total of 7 valence electrons. It gains one electron to become an anion and has a charge of -1.

Since the charge of the cation and the charge of the anion in NaCl should be balanced to give an overall neutral charge, we need one sodium cation and one chloride anion to get an overall neutral 0 charge.